In 2008, the Faculty of Arts at The University of Melbourne embarked upon a major overhaul of curriculum in nine languages: Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese in the Asia Institute; and French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish in the School of Languages and Linguistics. This article details the changes to the beginners' Italian curriculum outlining some of the pressures which necessitated the Language Curriculum Reform (LCR), as it came to be known. The LCR provided an ideal opportunity to reengage with language and culture resulting in a curriculum that integrates language and culture in an intercultural framework. It also allowed critical reflection on approaches to teaching and learning, and the revisiting and recasting of past practices.